Reviews

This wretched compilation of British page 3 models has them wandering around looking bored in various plush settings to no erotic effect. The 3d effect that is the selling point of the DVD is unconvincing and not helped by extraordinarily boring and repetitious camera angles. If you're unwise enough to buy it you'll be as bored as the models.

This movie is a genuine oddity: a Penthouse video with explicit sex. It also has a strange history: it was filmed in 1991 but not released until 1996/7 for reasons unknown.

It was made by Philip Mond who later went on to make the sumptuous _Zazel: The Scent of Love (1997 video)_(qv). Both titles look like movies from the 'Andrew Blake'(qv) catalog with knock out models, rich costumes and great make-up. The simple premise is explained in voice over: "We're runway models and we fantasize about sex a lot" so the viewer watches six wordless episodes of dream sex separated by girls striding up and down the runway.

The standout cast member is the stunning 'Diana Van Laar'(qv) who is both a Playboy Playmate (Dutch edition) and a Penthouse Pet (US edition). This is her one and only x-rated title.

If you like your erotica on the lavish side this is the movie for you.

I had no expectations at the start of this movie and reached the end impressed at its proficiency in the genre and the strong performances of its lead actors. Andrine Sæther is convincing as a woman whose life spirals drastically out of control as an initial mistake is compounded by a string of lies and deceptions. Bjørn Sundquist matches her as a tenacious and astute detective who gnaws away at the inconsistencies in her evidence. A tip of the hat also to writer/director Berit Nesheim for maintaining the narrative momentum and keeping us interested in the characters. Well worth your time.

Most episodes in the 'Erotic Tales' anthology provide an opportunity for abundant nudity by the female lead and this one is no exception. Beth Riesgraf is a very pleasant eyeful indeed. The plot of her wanting a video documentary of her deflowering allows the director to intermingle color and B&W footage (can't the girl afford a color camcorder?) and a bit of broad humor when the would be deflowerer wilts under the unblinking stare of the lens. A bit of fluff.

The plot of this 28 minute short is hackneyed stuff about the devil appearing in disguise to a young maiden just awakening to her sexuality. However it is carried along by the shimmering sensuality of the photography, the lushness of the art direction and the ravishing beauty of Renata Dancewicz as the maiden of the title. Worth a look when it pops up on TV, typically as a part of an "Erotic Tales" series of shorts.

What critical standards do you apply to a movie where one of the villians is despatched by a female ninja machine gunning a stream of ping pong balls from her vagina and another has his testicles inflated to the size of basketballs and exploded? The only sensible reaction is to treat it as slapstick comedy and judge accordingly.

By that standard, this movie is a hoot. The plot is some ridiculous palaver about saving the Shogun's honor, but the action moves along at a brisk clip with a steady stream of cheesy special effects, comically over the top violence, gratuitous nudity and lashings of sex, both straight and kinky. The cast chew the scenery (and occasionally each other).

Don't take it seriously. Just laugh along.

The idea of a comedy around the efforts of a couple of small time entrepreneurs trying to produce the first Slovenian porn film has potential, but this attempt at it doesn't come off.

It needed plenty of broad humor, but the makers are timid in their approach, eschewing the nudity and cheeful smuttiness that would have propelled it along.

The obvious stylistic (if that's the word) influence on this fiasco is the Troma school of low budget schlock but the level of talent on display is more that of the monumentally untalented Edward D. Wood Jr. The screenplay quickly loses its way through the absurd plot lines and just piles scene on scene in the hope that it will somehow work. It doesn't. The plot threads involve such inanities as Nazi lesbians, dingo girls, and a wheelchair bound megalomaniac harridan. To have any chance at all of raising a laugh it needed a director with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Haydn Keenan instead had his head firmly up his ass and we end up with about a dozen sniggers and not one laugh.

Male lead David Argue gives easily the most embarrassing performance of his career, but can perhaps claim it as a crime of passion since he was reported at the time to be romantically entangled with female lead (and Australian Playboy Playmate) Amanda Dole. Her acting career came to a screeching halt with this performance. Towards the end of the film she was crucified which turned out to be good preparation for the reviews.

It's been 26 years since I saw this turkey but I can still recall sitting through it with a mounting sense of disbelief that such an inept, unfunny load of dreck could escape the editing room and be fed into a projector.

The film is almost a course in what not to do in a comedy. Plot, jokes, timing, delivery. You name it, it lacks it. Even worse, it was billed as a sex comedy and turned out to be almost devoid of sex.

Writer/director Terry Bourke went on to score some modest successes, but I'll bet he's glad that this fiasco has not been released to cable or video. Pray it stays in the vault.

Plot? An ex-stripper buys a mountain home and turns it into a mountain lodge. Her ex-boyfriend turns up with his new stripper girlfriend and some frisky friends. This isn't a movie made to be followed, it's a movie made to be looked at. Acting? Breath control is the only skill in evidence. Who cares! The only critical judgment required of this sort of Playboy movie is whether the babes are beautiful, get naked at every opportunity and engage in lots of softcore groping. They sure do. Stunning Samantha McConnell steals the show as the aptly named Bait, outshining even former Miss USA Kelli McCarty. The rest try gamely, but just can't compete. Worth a weekly rental.

Plot? Something about two college boys hitting the road en route to a sex party and finding plenty along the way. This isn't a movie made to be followed, it's a movie made to be looked at. Acting? Breath control is the only skill in evidence. Who cares! The only critical judgment required of this sort of Playboy movie is whether the babes are beautiful, get naked at every opportunity and engage in lots of softcore groping. The answers are yes, yes and yes.

Renee Rea is a stunner and is surrounded by the usual troupe of naked lovelies. Watch it with the fast forward button close at hand.

I stumbled onto this on Showtime on a rainy night and expected little of it. To my surprise I was drawn into the plight of those trapped in the vicious stand-off of "The Troubles".

The movie conveys powerfully the oppressiveness of the weight of history that sustains the hatreds and the impossible dilemmas faced by people trying to navigate between the opposing forces.

The acting is generally excellent, particularly Maria Lennon as the wife torn between her husband and her loyalties. Anthony Brophy is superb as the trapped husband. The only weak link is Timothy Dalton who chews a bit too much of the scenery as the detective reeling in the unwilling informant.

The lengthy nude scene of Simone Bendix as Cary Elwes' lover is not "essential to the plot" but Simone is so stunning it would be churlish to complain.

Taut and effective. Give it a look.

This is a nifty, no nonsense thriller that starts out almost like Thelma & Louise and then veers sharply into darker territory. Megan Ward gets top billing but the movie is driven by a strong performance from Kristin Minter (E.R.) as a bad, bad girl. The plot is the usual tangle of cross and double cross that typifies the genre, but director/writer Kevin Tenney keeps the audience on its toes with some clever editing that yanks the viewer around in the timeline and shows events from the viewpoint of different characters. There's plenty of blood and violence and some dark humor. There's also an unexpected and quite gratuitous nude scene by Kristin Minter but, hey, who's complaining. Worth a look.

This choice slice of 70's sexploitation declare its style early on when one of the female leads comes down the stairs stark naked saying "Now where did I leave my skirt?" Nudity in abundance is the message and it sets out to deliver, ensuring that skin is amply displayed as the loopy gothic plot unspools.

It's locked firmly into the style of the genre. The acting is dismal, the special effects consist mainly of blood capsules, and the plot is a contrivance to hang the nudity on.

It's of passing interest that the cast includes some pioneers of French X-rated movies in supporting roles.

"Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold" takes an already cheesy original, "Attack of the 50 foot Woman" and makes it cheesier! But it does so in such an engagingly cornball manner that you can't help but smile even as you groan at the inane plot and low rent special effects.

The cast are all from the "golly, gosh" school of acting. They know full well they won't be up for Oscars so they lay it on shamelessly. There's an affectionate parody of Hugh Hefner. In a cute touch Michelle Bauer, who has stripped in dozens of b-flicks, plays a fully clothed science researcher.

Lead actress JJ North and her fellow ingenues are amply endowed but the nudity, toplessness actually, isn't raunchy. They're too busy hamming it up to heat it up. There's not all that much nudity in the film, so don't expect a flesh parade.

Not worth buying, but a good weekly rental.

There's precious little to like in this dumb flick. The female lead is a centrefold model who shows no evidence of having been to acting school and thankfully hasn't been heard of since. The male leads plays his camp character as dislikable, pretentious and effete.

There is a vague sci-fi plot supported by some truly ridiculous futuristic camera gear.

As an exploitation flick it doesn't get off the ground because the heroine can't project any erotic heat and simpering innocence won't carry the day. And contrary to expectations she doesn't disrobe much. As a sci-fi yarn it sinks without trace because of the low budget sets and props.

It was made at a time when tax breaks were the main motive for much film financing in Australia. The quality of the product was secondary, as in second rate. Just like here.

This film was made in France in the late 1980s, but it is unimaginable that it could be made in Hollywood then or now. The US studio mind set sees adolescence in 'American Pie' terms and the current wave of legislative hysteria over child porn precludes any thoughtful treatment of how adolescents deal with their emerging sexuality.

Working outside these constraints in France Catherine Breillat has been able to craft a film which is occasionally startlingly frank but never exploitive. She looks unblinkingly at the unruliness of adolescent sexual behavior and does not shy away from depicting the protagonist of the title as part seducer as well as part victim.

Delphine Zentout is sensationally good in depicting a young girl with rampaging hormones in a hurry to become a woman. She plays her as unashamedly surly, self absorbed and difficult, without a trace of cuteness.

This is a film in which every note rings true.